Reviewer, Smart Home
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is The Verge’s Smart Home Reviewer, meaning her family lives in misery, so yours doesn’t have to. She covers all areas of home automation and connected gadgets, from robot vacuums and video doorbells to smart lighting and locks. She joined The Verge in 2021 and is a leading expert on the smart home standard Matter.
A journalist for three decades, she’s covered the smart home since 2013, writing for publications including The New York Times, Wirecutter, Dwell, Wired, The Ambient, BBC Science Focus, and US News & World Report.
She received her training on London’s Fleet Street with The Daily Telegraph newspaper before moving to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she worked in local news for ten years. She now lives in South Carolina with her husband, two children, a dog, a cat, a rabbit, and seven chickens.
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Mishaal Rahman reports that Android 15 adds a Thread Network Stack to allow Android smartphones with Thread radios to directly control Thread smart home devices.
But there aren’t any such phones yet. Only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max have Thread. With the Pixel 9 launching next month, that could soon change.
According to reports from beta testers, the new InSight feature announced at WWDC has appeared in the latest developer beta of iOS 18 and tvOS 18.
InSight pops up details about actors, characters, and songs appearing onscreen in original Apple TV Plus shows. These also show on your iPhone, from where it appears to be easy to add songs to your library. Neat.
Apparently, the company messed up something with its Matter implementation, causing some lights to randomly turn up to full brightness. But they’ve identified the problem, and an update should be rolling out this week.
The Aqara U200 replaces your existing lock and comes with a wireless keypad, which you can tap with an iPhone or Apple Watch for easy unlocking.
It’s now available to buy on Amazon and works with European and UK locks, as well as US deadbolts. It uses Thread, is Matter-compatible, and has fingerprint and PIN code access.
I’ll have a review soon.
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The new Echo Spot looks like an intriguing option for a bedside smart display, thanks to Amazon’s decision to ditch the camera with this iteration.
The $80 smart speaker competes against the Google Nest Hub and the Echo Show 5. but the Nest takes up a lot of real estate, and the Show has a camera. Will the Spot be just right? I’ll have a review soon.
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Apple’s smart home efforts could use both a smarter Siri and a smart display, and we may soon get both.
MacRumors has discovered code that indicates Apple is working on a new HomeAccessory 17,1 that could be powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence.
Existing HomePods seem unlikely to be able to support the AI, so new smart home hardware seems inevitable.